All businesses run on some type of data. It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to coordinate sales efforts, work on a new marketing campaign, or provide better customer support; reliable data is what helps you to maximize your effectiveness in all these areas.
However, as your business grows and with it its digital footprint, data accumulation adds up quickly. The more information your company collects and stores, the higher the probability that a bad actor might try to get their hands on it.
There is also the challenge of data accuracy over time. When you start moving large amounts of data to and from your systems and databases, the integrity of that data can be compromised. Inaccuracies that occur as data is transferred from one location to another can cause long-term problems for the business.
Given the stakes, you can’t view data security as just an IT problem. It requires resources, strategy, and a deliberate effort to elevate risk management across the board.
Common Data Risks Today’s Businesses Face
- Security Threats – Cybersecurity threats are an unfortunate reality for modern businesses. If you aren’t regularly implementing defenses and validating their effectiveness, it’s like leaving a backdoor open to your business. Even small security gaps that go unfilled could be all that attackers need to exploit vulnerabilities and steal or compromise sensitive business data.
- Regulatory Adherence Failures – Depending on the industry your business is in, you’re likely already juggling a variety of requirements based on regulatory frameworks like GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, or other industry guidelines. If compliance isn’t viewed as a high priority, it can lead to substantial legal penalties.
- Compromised Data Accuracy – Data security isn’t always about cutting down on theft – it’s also about ensuring accuracy. As data moves between third-party services or cloud-based platforms, data reliability can degrade over time. This is especially true if your business relies more on manual updates than on automation. This can introduce subtle but dangerous data discrepancies that could affect the company’s intelligent decision-making.
- Financial Implications of Data Loss – There is a direct correlation between financial stability and good data hygiene. If your information is corrupted or stolen, the immediate loss of revenue is painful, but the recovery costs can be even worse. When you factor in the costs of digital forensic investigations, system repairs, legal fees, and the man-hours required to recover lost datasets, the financial implications add up quickly.
- Reputational Damage – Customers have high expectations of the businesses they choose to work with. When they provide you with their data, they assume that if they assume that it will be safeguarded and treated with respect. If that trust is broken due to negligence or poor planning, the fallout can be severe. It could lead to public relations nightmares and class-action lawsuits that can damage a brand far longer than the technical outage lasts.
Foundational Elements of Data Risk Management
Mapping Risks to Business Outcomes
Adding more security protocols to your operations shouldn’t stop you from achieving your business strategies and objectives. On the contrary, they can help to support them if mapped out correctly.
This effort all begins by conducting an audit of all your data sources to map out where data moves in and out of your systems. You should also classify all your data types to ensure you can associate a certain value with each of them.
While you want to keep your “entire” business secure, you want to be careful about where and how you spend your security resources. By establishing a hierarchy of data importance, you can allocate your budget and attention to the assets that actually keep the company running.
Continuous Exposure Monitoring
Finding out you have significant security flows during or after an attack is a worst-case scenario. To avoid discoveries before it’s too late, act now by being proactive about vulnerability assessments. At a bare minimum, you should be running comprehensive scans of your network environment twice a year.
Still, keep in mind that twice a year is really just a baseline, not necessarily a gold standard. In certain industry sectors, such as defense and healthcare, or if you have recently deployed new infrastructure, those checks should be happening much more frequently.
It can also be really valuable to bring in a fresh set of eyes and a security perspective. Partnering with penetration testing services can be a game-changer in this area. They’ll use simulated attack methods to test the strength of your defenses, helping you to locate the cracks that your internal teams may have missed.
Implementing Strategic Security Precautions
Once you identify where security vulnerabilities exist, it’s important to start addressing them. This typically will involve a mix of technology (firewalls, encryption) and security protocols (governance policies).
You also never want to underestimate the human element in your security planning. Your employees are your first line of defense, but without adequate training, they could become your biggest vulnerability. Equip your staff with the skills to spot a phishing attempt or handle confidential documents correctly. They can become an important asset for helping the business to maintain a more mature cybersecurity posture.
Structuring Operations Around Compliance Adherence
Ambiguity is the enemy of security. Following a strict compliance framework helps you to remove the guesswork around where and how to focus your security efforts.
Compliance and governance frameworks help to create clear lines of accountability. When everyone, from a new employee to the company’s CEO, understands their specific roles in data risk management, fewer things slip through the cracks.
Make Data Security an Important Part of Your Business
Security shouldn’t just be a “challenge” you’re trying to solve – it should be a fundamental part of your business’s growth strategy. It should inform many of your decisions and play an essential role in your continuity planning.
By following the strategies discussed, you’ll make sure that data security isn’t just an afterthought, and is instead leveraged to help you build a more resilient business moving forward.
Author Bio:
Nazy Fouladirad is President and COO of Tevora, a global leading cybersecurity consultancy. She has dedicated her career to creating a more secure business and online environment for organizations across the country and world. She is passionate about serving her community and acts as a board member for a local nonprofit organization.